311 sandi recipes

Lemon cream and nut cookies, buttery shortbread ovals spread with homemade lemon curd and crowned with toasted almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, prunes, rum-soaked raisins, and candied orange. A jewel-box holiday cookie.

Easy layered buckeyes with a peanut butter and powdered sugar base topped with melted chocolate, pressed into a pan and cut into squares. All the flavor of buckeye candy without rolling individual balls.

Sweet Indian lemon pickles (nimbu ka achar) with whole lemons cured in salt, cumin, and black pepper, then candied with sugar, raisins, and dried chiles. A traditional condiment that builds flavor over weeks.

No-bake fruit and nut balls made with cherries, dates, walnuts, almonds, and coconut, bound with a single egg and rolled in sugar. Five-ingredient old-fashioned candy with a chewy, dense bite.

A two-layer cocoa cake with a cooked fudge frosting made the old-fashioned way, heated to soft-ball stage and beaten until thick. Cake flour keeps the crumb feathery light against that dense, candy-like frosting.

Three-layer chocolate caramel bars with a fudgy brownie base, gooey pecan caramel topping, and a lacy semi-sweet chocolate drizzle. Makes 54 bars that store beautifully for 10 days. Think homemade turtle candy in cookie bar form.

Chiles en Nogada, Mexico's patriotic dish: roasted poblanos stuffed with a sweet-savory pork picadillo, draped in a cool, creamy walnut sauce and scattered with ruby pomegranate seeds. The green, white, and red of the flag on one plate.